NBA All-Star Game 2021: Who should be in the 3-Point Contest?

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NBA All-Star 2021 will officially take place on Sunday, March 7, 2021 at State Farm Arena in Atlanta.

In a year unlike no other, all major competitions will take place on one day, with the Skills Challenge and 3-point Contest coming prior to the game and the Dunk Contest coming at halftime of the All-Star Game. 

With that in mind, our NBA.com Staff weighs in on who'd they'd like to see in this year's 3-Point Contest.

MORE: NBA announces date, format for All-Star 2021

Scott Rafferty (@crabdribbles): I want to see Brooklyn Nets guard Joe Harris make his third straight trip to the 3-Point Contest.

He's already won it once, but it only feels right to reward him for having the best 3-point shooting season of his career. Through 35 games, Harris is up to a career-best 6.7 3-point attempts per game. Not only that, he's converted 50.4 percent of those opportunities. Harris has always been an accurate 3-point shooter — he led the NBA in 3-point percentage in 2018-19 — but playing next to Kyrie Irving, James Harden and Kevin Durant has turned him into a gunner.

It's an important development for Harris and the Nets, a team that has the potential to win it all this season.

Carlan Gay (@TheCarlanGay): Let me start by saying I just want to be entertained. And then say, I'm going with LA Clippers forward Paul George.

The last time PG13 was in the 3-point contest, he was a disaster as he scored just nine points. His performance was so bad his Oklahoma City Thunder teammate at the time Russell Westbrook couldn't help but laugh sitting courtside watching.

Russ

We also all remember the ridicule PG took online from his performance in the bubble, especially after his 3-point attempt in Game 7 against the Denver Nuggets that smashed the side of the backboard.

This season, though, George has been elite from deep, connecting on 47.3 percent of his triples. He ranks in the top-20 in 3-pointers made.

Let PG13 back into the contest and let him redeem himself.

Kyle Irving (@KyleIrv_): I'm going to go off the beaten path a little bit here. Give me Los Angeles Lakers guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope.

KCP was at the butt of everyone's jokes when things weren't going right for the Lakers in 2018-19 but redeemed himself in a big way during their title run in 2019-20. He was solid in the postseason (37.8 percent) and he's followed it up by shooting one of the most efficient 3-point clips in the league this season at a career-high 41.0 percent.

The defending champions deserve some representation in the All-Star Weekend skills challenges, and there's no better way to reward Caldwell-Pope for his impact in helping win the title than to let him rep the Lakers in the 3-point Contest.

Gilbert McGregor (@GMcGregor21): Let's get Toronto Raptors guard Fred VanVleet into the field.

It helps that we're not far removed from watching VanVleet knock down 11 triples en route to scoring a Raptors franchise-record 54 points in a win over the Orlando Magic.

And he made it look easy.

This season, VanVleet ranks among the top 10 in 3s made per game (3.4) and total made 3s, doing it all at a 38.3% clip. Thanks to his historic output, VanVleet now holds the mark for most made 3s in a game in the 2020-21 NBA season.

Can another player surpass that? Well, yeah. Will they? It'll be pretty hard.

Now that we've seen Freddy hit 11 treys throughout the course of an NBA game, I'm curious to see how many he could knock down in 60 seconds as he moves from rack to rack.

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